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Batman Issue 128
Synopsis "The Interplanetary Batman!" Batman and Robin, in their Batmobile, stop to answer a cry for help—a cry from an alien being. They are hardly out of the car when other aliens, not from the same world as the first one, paralyze the first alien, whom they call Kraak the space pirate, and Batman and Robin, whom they mistakenly believe to be Kraak's partners. All were taken to a prison on an alien planet's moon. During an exercise period, Batman and Kraak get into a fight after Kraak takes a poke at Robin. The two are separated and Batman and Robin taken in for questioning, then returned to Kraak's cell. Batman informs Kraak that they intend to break prison. Kraak offers to be their guide on the unfamiliar alien moon, and, after breaking jail, the threesome endure deadly natural perils and the efforts of the authorities to recapture them. They make their way to a spaceport, where they hijack an unattended space cruiser and escape from the moon. When Earth comes into sight on the viewport, Kraak informs them that they are not bound for Batman's home planet, but for the Claw Asteroid, where he hid his loot. After they disembark, Batman and Robin are seized by Kraak's gang, but the heroes break free and Batman subdues Kraak with judo. Shortly after, the Ergon police arrive in another space cruiser. Batman reveals that he convinced the police, during questioning, to let him prove his innocence by getting Kraak to show them the hiding place of his loot. The Ergon leader shakes hands with Batman, calling him the greatest crime-fighter of two solar systems. "The Million Dollar Puzzle!" Batman and Robin respond to a call for help from Sawyer, a wealthy man who has been assaulted and robbed—but only of an ordinary vase from the Thaddeus Moore auction. The two heroes recall two earlier burglaries of a clock and a thermometer, both bought at the Moore auction. Later, they check with Logan, a lawyer handling the Moore estate, and his aide Hillery, and learn that Moore had said he would leave a million dollars to his nephew, but would have to work hard for it and take care of his possessions. A fourth burglary, of a desk of Moore's now owned by Cora Dale, leads Batman and Robin to hear a poem Moore had left in his desk: "Mr. Field laid down a chain / Another Cyrus gave us grain / James knew all the whats and whys / If you know how you'll win the prize." Batman, realizing that Moore built models of great inventions, prompts Robin to guess the meaning of the riddle: Cyrus Field, the man who laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable, Cyrus McCormick, the inventor of the reaper, and James Watt, who invented the steam engine. This leads them to a series of adventures against crooks hired by an unknown mastermind to steal Moore's models, resulting in the discovery of a key to a secret deposit box of the Gotham City Bank containing Moore's million dollars. Hillery, the lawyer's assistant, proves to be the power behind the thefts, but is captured by Batman and Robin when tries to recover the key. "The Batman Baby!" Kathy Kane appears at the Wayne mansion with a startling gift—a baby boy. In her capacity as a director on the local orphanage's board, she has received the baby on the orphanage's doorstep with a note from the parents (unidentified) asking them to keep the child in hiding until he can be reclaimed, and asking the police to remain secret. Kathy, not wishing her Batwoman career to be imparied, trusts Bruce to be a good guardian to the child until his parents can be located. Batman attempts to leave the boy with Alfred when he goes for a nightly patrol, but the baby puts up such a squawk at Bruce's attempt to exit that he is forced to stay with the child to keep the neighbors from discovering its presence, while Robin patrols with Batwoman. The next day, from telltale threads in a crest pattern, they determine the boy is one of the royal family of Morania, a tiny European country. When they attempt to meet the ambassador of Morania, whose old king is dying, they are detained and then attacked by thugs, whom they beat back. Realizing that Lekkey, the assistant to the ambassador, was the only one who knew of their appointment, Batman and Robin trail him to the hideout of Bruno Groft, a foreign agent and assassin-for-hire, and defeat him and his gang and manage to rescue the abducted ambassador. He directs them to the hiding place of the prince and princess of Morania, the child's parents. They arrive just in time to prevent Lekkey from assassinating them so that Baron Karl, another family member, may assume the throne. The plotters, including Baron Karl, all wind up behind bars. Not long afterward, the king of Morania dies and the prince and princess assume the throne of their country. Alfred, for his part, has a delayed shock upon realizing he held a tiny bit of royalty in his hands. Appearances Individuals *Batman *Robin *Batwoman *Alfred Pennyworth *James Gordon *Cora Dale *Kraak Locations *Gotham City Category:Batman (Volume 1) Issues